United Nations Development Programme in the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia

Local Action for Inclusive Development

Project summary

Many discrepancies between municipalities still exist. Not all of them are able to ensure equal provision of quality services to all citizens. (Photo: Robert Atanasov/UNDP)

The country’s ambitious programme of decentralization began a decade ago.The wide-ranging reforms aim to improve the quality, efficiency and inclusiveness of public services by bringing local governments closer to the people.

The local governments have been under great pressure to adapt to these reforms and to meet the challenges of helping build a more stable, more democratic and multi-ethnic state, while expanding and improving the quality of the public services they deliver. For municipalities to meet these challenges, they have needed to find ways to build their institutional capacity. All 81 municipalities, large and small, have had to learn quickly how to carry out new responsibilities in important areas such as urban planning, environmental protection, social protection, education and healthcare.

Local development has and will continue to be one of the main challenges for the municipalities in the forthcoming period, as they are all facing similar problems in terms of understaffing, lack of human and financial resources and underdeveloped infrastructure.To ensure that local governments are able to deal with the complex reforms, ensure provision of efficient and transparent services to all their citizens and secure local growth, it is necessary to adopt an integrated approach to development, i.e. one that includes its economic, environmental and social aspects. And to ensure its sustainability, it has to be driven by local governments and actors.

Results

It is expected that by the end of this project, local governments will have all the necessary capacities and tools in place to:

- Reach out equally to all their citizens, particularly to the most vulnerable